


A Dark Coruscant Rhythm

by for_t2



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Anger, Coruscant (Star Wars), Dancing, F/F, Jedi Code (Star Wars), Late at Night, Pining, Sneaking Out, Temptation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-22 11:42:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21301502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2
Summary: Coruscant is beautiful at night, and so is Faith, even if Buffy knows Jedi aren't supposed to feel that way
Relationships: Faith Lehane/Buffy Summers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44





	A Dark Coruscant Rhythm

“What are you doing?”

The only answer Buffy got was a shh and a sharper tug. So she tried her usual strategy of digging her heels in and pulling the other padawan to a halt.

“Faith!”

“What’s the matter, B?” 

“This!” Buffy hissed, gesturing at the Jedi Temple hall around them. The currently very quiet and very empty Jedi Temple hall. 

“I don’t see anything.” 

“Because it’s the middle of the night!”

“I know,” Faith replied with a trademark shrug. And, oh no, playing dumb is not going to work on Buffy. Not tonight. Not again. 

“Which means,” Buffy just enough emphasis to get her message across, “that we aren’t supposed to be here.” 

“So why are we standing here?” Faith grinned, and tugged Buffy with her. 

“Faith!” 

Sneaking out of the Temple in the middle of the night is neither Buffy’s idea nor a good idea, and there’s a part of Buffy that knows that she should be worried about how it’s become an increasingly regular occurrence, especially when Faith gets back from another mission, especially since her old master died on a mission she still refuses to talk to anyone about, and especially since Master Wesley took over her training. But… 

“Come on, B!” 

Sometimes Buffy finds it hard to resist Faith. She’d never admit it, especially not after hearing Faith endure an hour-long lecture from Wesley for absolutely failing to accomplish even the most basic mind trick, but sometimes Faith just has to smile the right way and it does stuff to her. Stuff that she can’t quite explain, which probably means it’s stuff that she shouldn’t be feeling, but stuff that’s there anyways. 

And so every night, when Faith slides up to her and grabs her hand, Buffy protests, but Buffy goes with her. 

Giles is going to kill her. 

***** 

“What do you think?” 

Every night, it’s someplace new. Someplace dirty and crowded in the depths of Coruscant. Somewhere where the lights flash through the darkness of the city, where the music and machinery pounds through her body and over her heart. After the second time he caught them, Master Giles told Buffy that this probably just Faith’s way of showing off her home planet, and that, really, Buffy should encourage her to dedicate herself to her training instead, or at the very least find more appropriate methods of letting off steam. A Jedi seeks knowledge and enlightenment and training and… or however the code goes. When Buffy passed the message along, Faith laughed, and Buffy kinda liked the way she laughed, so that was that. 

“B?”

“Huh?” Buffy snapped her head up from the… thing in her hands to find Faith looking at her expectantly. 

“You don’t want to try it?” 

Buffy felt bad at the way Faith looked kinda hurt at her hesitancy, but the… thing, which Faith swears is food but which she got from some unyummily sketchy-looking vendor, doesn’t look like any food Buffy’s ever seen before. And the smell is kinda making her eyes water. “No, I just...” she stammers. “What is it?” 

Faith shrugged. “Look. If you’re not going to have it…” She made a grab for it. 

Too slowly. Buffy shoved the entire thing into her mouth instead. Not to please Faith, but to acquire new knowledge. Because Buffy’s a good Jedi. But, all focused on trying to chew, she missed the way Faith’s eyes went wide. 

“Uh, B...”

For a moment, Buffy decided that, hey, it actually tasted pretty good. For a moment. A moment later she realised that it was actually kinda spicy. And the next few moments, well, all she could think about was the way her mouth was burning. 

“You’re not supposed to eat it all at once.” 

“Faith…” Buffy struggled to find a way to let the words come out. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Got better things I’d like to do to you.”

Unfortunately, Buffy was too busy trying to find water to notice her wink. 

“Buffy?” 

“Help.”

***** 

If the streets outside had been loud, the club that Faith dragged her into was even louder. 

And the drink Faith found, which she promised would cool down the spicy goodness, was making her just lightheaded enough that she knows Giles would do his sigh, and give her another lecture about the responsibilities and duties of a Jedi Knight. “What’s in this?” 

Faith leaned over, close enough to make Buffy’s senses tingle, and sniffed the drink. “Dunno.” She took a gulp. “Did it work?”

Yeah, it did. “Think so.” 

And, despite her questionable taste in food and drinks, Buffy has to admit that Faith does have a certain talent when it comes to figuring out ingredients. And a certain talent when it comes to resisting poisons. Talents which Master Wesley bragged would turn his padawan into the best botanist the Order had seen in a hundred years. Faith, of course, replied that she’d rather be the best ass-kicker the Order had seen in a thousand years, which made Buffy snicker, which earned them both a disapproving glare and a mercifully small lecture. 

And, right now, the way Faith is so close to her is really making her senses tingle in a way that’s just the Force. “Maybe I should have another, just to make sure.” 

“Wait.” Faith stops her. And then hesitates, looking slightly scared in a way that’s a little adorable, at least in Buffy’s opinion. “Do you want to…” 

“To…?”

“You know.” 

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to dance with me?” Faith mumbles, avoiding Buffy’s eyes. 

And, well, they both know they shouldn’t, but that doesn’t stop Buffy from taking Faith’s hand. “Yeah.”  
With that, Faith’s grin pops back up, a little bigger than before, and she takes the lead again, and brings Buffy to the middle of the floor. 

And they dance. In the lights, and the rhythm, the heat and the smoke, they dance, like the night could last forever, the friction of their robes, the flexibility and strength of their finely-trained muscles, the Force flowing around them, through them, just the two of them, alone in the crowd, together in-sync, in motion. It feels like it could last forever. And, for a few minutes, it does. 

Until a skeevy guy who radiates wrong pushes between them. 

“Hello there, little ladies.”

“Fuck off.” Faith pushes him away. 

He doesn’t take the hint. Comes right back. “No need to be rude.” And he grabs Buffy’s arm. 

It’s a mistake. 

Faith sends him flying. 

It gets a few people’s attention. And when he stomps back towards them, it gets a few more people’s attention. And when he draws a blaster, when Faith’s lightsaber cuts it down before his finger gets anywhere near the trigger, that draws everyone’s attention. 

“Don’t touch her.” 

Buffy can hear the music stop, can feel the hostility through the air. 

“Jedi.” 

There’s more blaster pointing at them now, and a nice handful of other weapons, most of which Buffy doesn’t recognise. 

“You shouldn’t have come here.” 

“This is my planet,” Faith shoots back, and Buffy can see right through the calm she’s projecting. “I go where I want.”

“Well this is my part of town,” an even more dangerous, even richer, looking guy steps through the crowd. “And I say you’re not welcome here.” 

“Sounds like a challenge.” 

“Sounds like you have a death wish.” 

“The only deaths tonight—”

Buffy grabs Faith before she can finish that threat. “We were just going.” 

“Hey, B, come on. I”ve—”

“We’re going.” 

***** 

“Hey, Faith.”

The moment Buffy dragged her out of the club, back out onto the streets, Buffy lost sight of her. A bump in the wrong direction, a distraction just long enough for Faith to slip away, and Buffy found herself alone. 

It took her a while, and a lot of jumping, but she managed to track Faith down. She always does. She knows that if Faith really wanted to disappear, she could. And that idea scares Buffy more than she likes. But tonight, she found her, sitting on a small metal ledge barely a quarter of the way up on the mega-skyscrapers of the planet. Of course, a quarter of the way up on Coruscant is very high up, and Buffy’s just scared enough of heights to be extra grateful that she’s a Jedi. 

“You shouldn’t have done that.” 

“You going to lecture me?” 

“No, but—”

“Padawan Buffy’s always the good one, eh?” Faith scoffs, still refusing to turn her head towards Buffy. “Destined for the Council, isn’t that what they say?” 

“Faith…”

“No, come on.” Faith finally looks at her, and she looks pissed. Ready for a fight. “Tell me. Tell me how you know best.” 

“Faith.”

“Do you think you’re better than me?” 

“Faith!” The way Faith’s mouth twitches into a tiny smirk tells Buffy that she’s letting Faith get to her, and not in a good way. 

“Knew it,” Faith scoffs, and turns away again. 

“Faith, you’re scaring me.” 

“I’m scaring you?”

“You’re getting angry.” Buffy has heard enough to know that Faith wasn’t in the best shape when the Order picked her up, and even after more than a decade of training, Buffy’s seen enough to know that Faith still hasn’t lost her rough side. 

“Maybe I have a right to be angry.” 

“Anger leads to hate.” 

Faith doesn’t reply.

“And hate leads to the dark side.” 

“Maybe the dark side isn’t all wrong.” 

“Yes, it is.” 

Faith snaps her head, her glare, back towards Buffy. “The idiots down there? They’re the dark side. If being on the good side of the Force means that we aren’t allowed to fight them, then what’s the point?” 

“There’s a way we have to do things.” Buffy would feel kinda uncomfortable at how much she’s starting to sound like Giles right now, but maybe the Jedi Master is a little wiser than she publicly gives him credit for. “We’re the guardians of the galaxy. Or the peace of the… Or whatever the Code says.” 

Faith stays silent for the longest moment. “There is no emotion, only peace. There is no ignorance, only knowledge. No passion, only serenity. No death, only the Force.”

“You remember the Code?” By heart? 

“We’re kinda supposed to, B.” And maybe Faith has a point, but Buffy isn’t exactly the type destined to be a scholar. Not that she’s stupid, it’s just… holograms all look the same after a while. 

“Why would I need to remember it when I’ve got you?” 

“That’s the problem, B.” 

“The problem?”

“What’s the point in being a Jedi if I can’t have you?” 

“Huh?” For a moment, Buffy’s brain overloads. What’s that supposed to mean? She doesn’t mean… No. She can’t. She wouldn’t. Right? Or… 

“It’s beautiful.” Faith’s looking out again, and if Buffy could stop thinking for a moment and follow her eyes, she’d have to agree. “The city.” Despite all the chaos, the shadows, the Force pulling in a million different directions, there is something that’s just right about the way Coruscant comes together. About the way it lives. 

“Faith?”

“B?”

“You know you’ll always have me, right?”

Faith eyes find her, and it’s too vulnerable, too searching, too scared for someone as beautiful as Faith. 

“I promise.”


End file.
